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FBI caliber study

9K views 46 replies 27 participants last post by  GrimGhost99 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Good article, and validates what has already been shown by others.

All of the pistol duty calibers, when used with modern SD ammunition, have equivalent stopping power.

You might be inclined to interpret this as meaning they are all equally good, but in fact it's more appropriate to think of it as meaning they are all equally bad.

Pistols are just not very good at putting humans down. Ellifritz studied actual shootings and found that it takes 2-3 hits to reliably stop a bad guy, no matter what pistol caliber you use.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Limited to poor law enforcment training is also a huge factor in the caliber debate and selection. In my area I can't tell you how many LE come to my range and are barely proficient with their issued handgun. I teach a CCW class and would put many of them in a beginner to intermediate level. Its really bad.
Carry weight and unit price is THE only factor with these people. They shoot one time a year only because they have to.
Those that have a higher risk factor are carrying 40S&W or 45acp.
Our SWAT team mainly carries Kimber 1911's. Even the detectives are carrying 1911s so the 45acp is making a big come back.
On the bright side, the PA State Police is gradually introducing even more P227 for the new cadets as the standard duty weapon.
 
#7 ·
On average LEO's don't train as much as you think.

Here's a LEO who shoots 4 times point blank but only hits the persons hip once.

South Carolina trooper shot unarmed man, police say - CNN.com

Sad situation for the innocent man!!! And that limited trained LEO for scaring himself into such a situation!
Perfect example of NOT ENOUGH TRAINING (or evaluation) in communication skills and tactics, i would have reacted the same as the innocent man!! Poor hit rate THANK JESUS!!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#8 · (Edited)
There is very little incentive for non-gun enthusiast LE to practice. Some of my SWAT buddies love it when I bring a selection of some of my personal handguns for them to shoot.
My Sig Custom shop AEP Dark Elite in 40 is the always the most popular. I could sell 10 of them to the dept if I was able to and it was left up to the actual user.

On a amusing side note,......our local police needed a special "weapon" to put down wild and domestic game from car strikes in town. The reason was their 40S&W kept blowing holes in the sidewalk and road when they shoot the smaller game. Now the most shot duty weapon is a single shot Crickett 22lr.:D
 
#12 ·
Law enforcement is not supposed to use their firearms unless it is a response to a very dangerous incident and even then only to match force. And when they do I am told they have to make it a lethal shot. Most of the local officers here are so out of shape I am surprised they can even walk half the time. State Police seem to think they are still in the Marines... They all stay in top shape physically. I know a lot of State Police and all of them are very good men to know. At the same time when I use to shoot IDPA I always wondered if the law enforcements members ever looked at their guns. And I knew in a gun fight most of the time I was completely safe. But not many officers get to shoot 30 or 40,000 rounds a year... Their job isn't to use their firearms...
 
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#13 ·
In my 40 years in LE I have seen and read just about all the comparisons on caliber/projectile performance. Lethal force shootings are each different yet the same. I have seen 5 .45acp rounds fail to even stop a knife wielding attacker while a murder victim was hit once with a .25acp. It all depends on the size/shape of the intended target, where the projectile hits and the damage it does inside the human body.

Over the years I have either read or participated in the "which caliber, which maker" tests for my department. I don't believe in the caliber wars. Anything 9mm and above is fine with me. When I was on duty it was a .45acp. Not for any reason other than it performs better on barriers like angled car windshields. Now it's 9mm.

On training, sadly most of my fellow officers treat their sidearm as an evil of the job. They do their once or twice a year qualifications only. I reserved range time every two weeks, even spending my own money for LFI I-II-III, Fistfire, and Gunsite. It always bothered me that departments left themselves liable for officers lack of training.
 
#14 ·
It is easy to sit at a computer and hammer accuracy statistics for those who are put in life and death situations. With very little training one can blow a hole in a stationary target at 15 yards. The truth is no matter how much you train (short of SWAT type training) your accuracy is going to be effected when the target starts shooting back and is moving.

Most enforcement people I know love to shoot and would much rather be on the range that out on the street. In reality there is limited time and appropriations to make them SWAT trained. About 2000 rounds per year per officer was a generous allotment. With qualifications and general training this doesn't leave a lot for pure tactical training.
 
#15 ·
Lately I have been looking at 9mm as an "experts" caliber. If you know what you are doing, proficient with your firearm, and practice on a regular basis the 9mm lets you do a good job and with a higher capacity you can take on even more dangerous situations. I wouldn't want to give a novice shooter though a high capacity 9mm, the last thing I would want is somebody doing a spray and pray in a panic situation around a large group of people.
 
#16 ·
Decision is being driven by cost. Bureaucrats made a decision based on budget and then told the tech people to go justify the decision.

Interesting that our Armed Forces are doing the opposite. Most Special Ops never abandoned the .45 ACP, and they use it in action more than anyone else. Texas Rangers and Texas DPS Special Ops adopted the Sig 1911 TacOps in .45 ACP a couple of years ago.
 
#17 ·
A 70% miss ratio is a conservative estimate, I'd venture to place it even higher. I'm an LE Firearms Instructor and Range Master for my department and let me put it to you this way, LEO's by and large ARE NOT gun people. They will shoot only what is provided to them for training and/or qualification. The LEO gun enthusiast is the 1%.

Many believe that "just because" they carry a sidearm for 40+ hrs a week some how makes them a weapons expert. Let me tell you, it doesn't. Just recently I was able to convince my department to start conducting quarterly training so that we can at least document at a minimum, 1,000 rounds of pistol training per year. Yes, it's costly, but you either mitigate or litigate the liability associated with failing to train.

In terms of the trend towards going back to 9mm, my department retired the SIG P229 .40 DAK and adopted the HK P30 V1 9mm as the issued sidearm in September of 2013.
 
#23 ·
I am not sure what you are saying in some of your post. When you say LEO are not gun people and that only 1% are gun people. Maybe its you definition of a gun person that make this figure 100% reversible for me. If I trained or had an employee that I thought fell into your 99% their careers were redirected or they would be terminated. By your definition I would have kept only 1 employee in 100.

While my career also contained the elements of yours, I shot what was provided to me. Other than hunting rounds I never purchase extra rounds to practice with. This was not because I didn't want to, it was just a financial burden that was better directed.

A thousand rounds per year per person is only 250 per person quarterly, not much. But, it demonstrates how costly it is per person to maintain proficiency.
 
#20 ·
Not to hijack the thread, but I'd like to ask a related question. Some time ago an FBI friend of mine told me their firearm training standard was 3,3,3. Which meant 3 rounds in 3 seconds at 3 yards.

Not sure what the standard is today, but I agree accuracy/placement is more important than caliber.
 
#24 ·
If you apply that same "pucker factor" to a military combatant organization you'd probably see similar results assuming you are talking about combat handgun scenarios. I'm not convinced a 30% hit ratio (100% - the miss ratio) means anything without a lot of qualification on the data. I can't speak to law enforcement scenarios but my guess is you probably don't engage many "cooperative" targets.

I'm sure there is pressure to "save money at all costs" within a lot of departments these days. So to advocate the switch to 9mm is tempting by the bean counters. I think the caliber wars are nothing more than the search for the next decimal place on penetration. What makes intuitive sense to me is that if you can only get one good shot off at the target you may want it to count. Training is the best solution to help that.
 
#22 ·
On the whole note of LEO training issue, I saw an episode of Cops where at least 2 officers thought a Springfield XD was a Glock, and they had Glocks as their duty weapons. All it takes is a little time to familiarize yourself with different handgun manufactures and their designs, which I think is vital in that line of work.

Also talked with my lgs owner and he said the local cops train about once a month if that.
 
#29 ·
Great read, big Thanks for sharing here. We have come soooo far with the quality of our available ammo. It wasn't too many years ago most carry weapons were .38s with 158gr lead bullets. Heck, that's all my grandad (a Fed cop) ever had, and they took-on some very tough gringos back then.

Here's a 38 special story - In 1973, a State Highway Patrol cop, friend of mine was shot in the forehead with a 38. I was with him as he was admitted into a hospital. Thank god, the bullet entered at an angle, slipped under the skin and traveled under his scalp, stopping on the backside of his head, just below his hairline area. The 38 lead bullet was still under his skin, just made a funny-looking knot on the back of his head!!

Obviously, that is one very hard-headed cop!! Also, some pretty lousy SD ammo... Cheers
 
#33 · (Edited)
As we all know, statistics, facts, and figures can be presented to support a particular agenda or view point. This "study" can be just as guilty of trying to support a particular agenda or viewpoint.
The government does this all the time with about everything and there is always many influencing factors that are far from scientific. This is only one study and certainly should not be considered the final word of the topic. I am not sure I would let a governmental study choose the color of socks for me in the morning. Give it the credibility you would of any governmental study.
 
#35 ·
This document is purported to be FBI in origin.
I see no confirming evidence tht this is an FBI study.
In fact there are no facts supported by objective evidence, only subjective information.
The FBI still uses 40 Glocks as the duty weapon.
Case closed-Dick
 
#38 ·
While I happen to know who he is, I don't know why Ive seen him come up so often lately. Am I missing the punchline or something. (or was that a lil fun at thread?)
 
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